mikew68

I would like to applaud the hysteria about this incident, the Terroist Support Agency must be having a mass orgasm. All at once condem this guy before all the facts are known. As ( from the sorry AP report) there seems to be a unknown quanity of explosive found, where was the initiator ( blasting device ) to set off the explosive ?

Better yet why didn't they the TSA evacuate a 10 mile radius from the terminal. A total OVER REACTION as usual . One just has to look at the sorry management structure of TSA to explain THIS ABJECT STUPIDITY.

C-4 explosive needs a mini explosion to detonate.. otherwise it is a inert substance... The sheeple get to much of their information( govt. propaganda ) from the movies...and the totally bias and inept news media..

Letitride3c

The media circus is still trying to find traction to spin this one good, as POTUS signed the defense authorization bill yesterday - the TSA getting their wishes as he "expressed concerns" about some members of Congress wanting to restrict options used in counterterrorism. Which side is he on, not mine for sure ....

http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/31/politi...html?hpt=hp_t3

I'm having a very, very hard time picturing the Al Qaeda "links" to these stories, the big catches lately are mostly, if not, all home-brewed or home-grown, most likely by morons & fools with objects like stun guns, walking cane swords & spring-loaded knife - offsetting the collar buttons, candy, cupcake & chocolated, etc. etc.

It seemed that "we" are the ones terrorizing ourselves - and, sadly the 3-1-1 and 100 ml liquid rules, shoes & belts off, groping, among other "bad" things happening at the checkpoints aren't going away, yet (anyway) ....

loops

Epod

It may have been a typo, but it's my favorite phrase (and general diagnosis) regarding the TSA. You, sir, have got my year off to a great start!

OxonCantab

Agreed, it's an amazing phase - I love slips like that.

SATTSO

You post shows you have a terrible lack of understanding of potential threats.

SATTSO

And rightfully so.

RichardKenner

10 miles? Are they suspecting a large nuclear weapon? In the absence of finding an actual bomb, I think an evacuation of any sort would be an overreaction. But I don't think that a terminal dump is. As was said upthread, here is a real risk of having explosive components brought in by different people and later assembled. Rescreening everybody to doublecheck that this isn't the case doesn't seem that much of an overreaction to me. Many here are in favor of a "risk-based" approach. It seems reasonable that once you've found one passenger with a bomb component that the risk is now higher than others may have one as well.

SATTSO

It is amazing that many peolpe do not get this.

As pointed out by the GAO, the FBI, and various other agencies, the greatest risk is an un-assembled IED. It is more difficult to see on the x-ray. It can potentially be brought in at different airports. People involved do not need be on the same flight; they do not need to meet - one person can dump an item in a trash can for another to pick up in an hour or so later.

Explosives found at the checkpiont is such a rare event that dumping the terminal is a prudent measure. After which a sweep of the terminal should be conducted, and passengers/employees re-screened. To not do so would be silly. Would be stupid, actually.

But I suspect that many on this site will complain about TSA no matter what happens. Goes with the territory, I guess.

RichardKenner

Of course, a terminal dump wouldn't protect against that case, since people would be meeting at a connecting airport. But I think the point there is that if a plot is so complex that it requires multiple airports, the necessary coordination would have a much higher chance of being caught by law enforcement and intelligence.

SATTSO

If the terminal includes the gate area then it would help in this particular case. If 2 people are involved, one fly into a particular airport to make a connecting flight. The other clears security at that airport, and they meet at the gate to assemble the IED. For the most part, it can happen at any airport.

RichardKenner

I was thinking of a case where people arrive into, say, ATL with IED components from LGA, JFK, MIA, FLL and BOS. If the person with the explosive is caught in LGA, doing a terminal dump there wouldn't find anything. And trying to do a terminal dump at ATL based on his destination would be too costly to be practical since you'd have no idea of the timing: when the others would be arriving.

Tom M.

You don't think that if he worked for the TSA he should be fired?

RatherBeOnATrain

Wrong.

The greatest risk any traveler takes is driving to the airport.

The greatest risk of a terrorist attack is a suicide bomber (or another attack) in the middle of the zig-zagged lines of passengers awaiting screening at a TSA checkpoint.

The second greatest risk of a terrorist attack is a bomb (in unscreened cargo) that is shipped via cargo hold.

IEDs are much farther down the list of potential terror attacks. Even if an IED is onboard,
passengers and crew still have a chance to thwart its detonation (like they did to the underwear bomber).

Letitride3c

He, He - LOL - a terminal dump is simply DUMB (that's what happened when you are banging away on a tablet, typo/slip/whatever ....)

I'm glad over this holiday, we are NOT flying and dealing with this nonsense security theater.

With the billions in federal funding spend on intelligence & anti-terrorism effort, spending our young girls & boys abroad to look for WMD in the justification for the wars, I see the rational justifications for doing a full scale evacauation - in the face of a CONSPIRACY theory involving possibility 2 or more "suspected" terrorists that our government fully trained in boot camp and overseas expertly ( = active military ) Nevermind, there's no hint of intelligence failure, just like the 9/11 days - we "thank god" that our blue shirts with a badge performed their duties as expected on the frontline and caught it (on old fashion x-ray equipment) - without using any advanced imaging technologies.

Of course, BDO woud've probably waive them onward with a smile, maybe even a courtesy salute to thank this military personnell for his hardship tour of duty - and, yeah, gate agents often upgrade them up to J or F and they are often among the first to board (ahead of many with "elite" status)

To play it safe, with the possibility of multiple "suspected" idiots involved flying & conspired to plot, we would need to ground planes in the air, scramble NORAD and do at least terminal evacuations and re-screening of all passengers for the entire region, and not just a single airport ???